What my testing tells me about Penguin

From my research I think its possible it could be neither. It appears to me that its the actual keywords that are penguined, rather than the page.

I have set up a new site and 301 redirected all of the pages except one page that fell very deep in the serps. I assumed that as this page was so deep it would be a bad idea to add a redirect as any penalty on the page (if the penguin hits the page not the domain) would be passed over.

Instead I added a 404 to the page in question and started a new page for the keyword term on the new site.

This new page is still not ranking at all. Now it could be possible there are many other factors preventing the page ranking but based on the domain previous success you would expect the page to rank somewhere decent if penguin is not site wide.

Rather interestingly I have created several totally new pages for the new site with keywords I have never targeted before. A few of these pages are ranking number 1 (within 2 weeks).

So this suggests to me that the penalty is certainly not site wide as it is very easy to rank new content. So if it was so simple to rank the new keyword content I would expect the new page for the old 404 page to rank also.

As its not ranking it looks to me like my site could be prevented from ranking for the keyword phrase that my site has hundreds of exact match links for.

This is not fact.... just an observation. Would love to hear thoughts on this.

Interesting, but there are a lot of sites that took hits for many different keywords at the same time. I also think we would have seen far more dramatic shake-ups for specific keywords if what you're saying were true.

Perhaps it is not the keyword or the site/page, but some combination thereof... Well, quite obviously it is that really, but I'm sure you know what I mean.

Perhaps a keyword or keyword phrase attached to a page...Ya I know what ya mean.

I had a client that ranked fine for the subpages but the main page dropped like a rock because he spammed the sh!t out of the anchor text through his backlinks. Diversifying your anchor text is one of the keys...IMO

Which is exactly what our esteemed Gorilla man means by targeting single words.

Well, for sure some brainstorming can be helpful, but there are so many things that are explained well in Google webmaster central blog and in Webmasters Help video channel at Youtube, so I guess it is better to check, this without jumping into wrong conclusions.

new content or new keywords??

Rather interestingly I have created several totally new pages for the new site with keywords I have never targeted before. A few of these pages are ranking number 1 (within 2 weeks).
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1. did you put in all new backlinks to these new pages ,,, or redirect old links with revised ancor text to point to them??

2. as of now ... how long have the new pages stayed high ranking ... so far??

consider this ... maybe it is not the domain ... or the page ... or the kwyword that is penalized ... maybe it is the BACKLINK itself .....

i have seen some backlink ancor text changed ... but still pointing to the same page ... but then that page started ranking for that NEW KEYWORD (on the same old page that got penalized for a different kw)... but curiously ... it disappeared after a few weeks ....